Chapter Text
Grace wasn’t doing well, to say the least.
He’d woken up in space, ALONE mind you, and found that he was around 12 light years away from Earth, with very little information on who he was or what exactly he was doing in deep space, and nowhere NEAR enough fuel to get him home.
Thankfully, Ilyukhina had packed lots of vodka.
So there he was, drinking his sorrows away as he travelled through the vast expanse of space towards the Tau Ceti system, trying to remember who he was and what his role was in everything. Bits and pieces came to him as he trudged through his loneliness. He remembered Stratt, Carl, him joining the Petrova Task Force… Project Hail Mary. As he remembered more and more, Grace started to try and wean himself off the vodka, realizing that he was the world's lifeline…
He tried cleaning up his appearance a little more as he dealt with the awful migraines that came from his hangover- but he still didn’t look super put together… and you could definitely tell he had been in a depressive episode for the past… weeks? Time is weird in space, he didn’t really know how long it had been.
Without the alcohol, the depressing reality was beginning to crush him. He wasn’t ready to bear this burden on his own… but that appeared to be what he had to do, the rest of the crew had passed away during their comas, leaving him all alone.
…
At least, that’s what he thought. He had been laying in one of the walkways, fighting off the throbbing pain in his head when he heard The Hail Mary’s robotic voice coming from the dormitory,
“EYE MOVEMENT DETECTED.”
“Mmn, whaa?” Grace groaned, barely looking up from where he was
“COGNITION ASSESSMENT. WHAT IS 2+2?”
…
HOLY CRAP
Grace suddenly sat up, trying to fight through the wave of dizziness that came with the motion. Man, an alcohol influenced system and dehydration do NOT mix.
Regardless, Grace’s head was spinning out of control.
There was another person on the ship? Another alive person? He wasn’t alone…?
Grace stumbled down the hallway to the dormitory with a buzz of excitement and anxiety as the ship gave the newly awakened person the same run down he’d gotten about memory, vocal, and muscle function; he needed to make sure he wasn’t just going insane. He’d heard the sounds of someone fighting to get away with a body that refused to listen to them, the slurred speech- and all he could think about was how cruel it would be if this turned out to just be a dream.
But there they were, on the medical table- well, bed —Which the robot clearly had to drag them back onto— they seemed to have given up the fight. Lying there, clearly on edge but powerless. They sat still as their ginger hair was cut, and they were given a blanket to cover themself.
It was like a bucket of ice cold water had been dumped on his head upon getting a proper look at them.
They looked so young…
Once the robot left the kid alone, they began to look around, sitting up, and finally allowing themself to properly panic; they began to breathe heavier as they took in the unfamiliar environment.
“Oh god… where am I…?” They breathed out, their movements becoming more frantic. They did their best to stand up, knees shaking like a baby fawn learning to walk when they suddenly froze.
Ocean blue suddenly met with ocean blue.
They simply stared at Grace for a minute or so, trying to gauge whether he was a friend or a foe,
“Wh-who are you…? Where are we...”Their voice was so small, they sounded absolutely terrified, shaken right to their core, and rightfully so.
Grace couldn’t help but be reminded of his students back on Earth upon seeing them. They didn’t look that much older than any of his students from what he could tell.
He suddenly felt very… paternal? Maternal? Maternal sounded like the right word but he was a guy? Either way, he felt a rush of some kind of parental instinct to protect this kid, make sure they were okay and safe.
He stepped forward, suddenly wishing he didn’t look quite so… scruffy. This certainly wasn’t how he wanted to make his first impression, but in his defense the catalog had completely skipped over the kid when he asked Mary about still living people on the ship. He was still wondering about how that was possible.
“I’m… I’m Grace. Well- Ryland Grace, Dr. Ryland Grace, but most people refer to me simply as Grace.” He rambled with a lighthearted chuckle, trying to put the kid at ease a little before they for sure freaked out, “And- before I answer that second question, could I ask for your name..?”
The kid looked at Grace with lots of skepticism. They seemed to find no logical reason to not tell him their name. He didn’t seem particularly… dangerous, the man was wearing a fox mask and a ‘Cats: The Musical’ T-shirt. That just kind of lowered their guard against him.
“Basil.”
A brief moment of silence passed between them, with Grace awaiting a last name that seemed like he’d have to prompt for.
“Any last name? Or is this like- who was that actress- sorry, my brain is withholding most of my memories so everything is a little fuzzy for me. Oh!” a snap of his fingers, “Zendaya, that’s who I’m thinking of. What I mean is- if you were in a movie would you just be listed as ‘Basil’ or..?” Grace was really just rambling, trying to make a joke of some kind. Whether or not the joke was landing? Who’s to say?
Basil gave a bit of an awkward laugh before clearing their throat,
“Chevalmarin.”
Grace grinned warmly at Basil, “That’s a lovely name! It’s French right? Che-val-ma-rin… you’ll have to help me translate it, I wish I had taken more time to learn languages on earth, it’s such a useful skill, it would be awesome to be able to communicate with a wider demographic of people-”
“You talk a lot.”
“Sorry, I haven't had anyone to talk to in a while.” An uncomfortable silence settled over them, making both of them feel like their skin was crawling. The silence other than the general hum of the room went on for what felt like a handful of minutes before Basil cleared their throat to grab Grace’s attention,
“So… Where are we…?”
Grace took a deep breath, he was worried about how the kid would take the reality of being on a one way trip in space. He hadn't been handling it well himself, and he was an adult, so he was theoretically the more mature person between the two of them. But he’d do his best to be there for them if they needed it.
Grace moved a little closer to the kid, which was met with Basil stepping away to maintain the same distance they had before. Which was completely understandable, he was a stranger after all.
Grace couldn’t think of any way that he could say it without absolutely crushing them, so he decided to just rip the band-aid off.
“We are… in space on a ship called The Hail Mary.. We have been tasked with going to Tau Ceti and figuring out why it isn’t dying to Astrophage. We’re the Hail Mary attempt to save The Sun… and… we won’t be returning home...” Grace tried to work in the pun that was the name of the ship to try to lighten the blow of the crushing reality.
But of course, the pun wasn’t anywhere near enough to make the situation any easier on the kid; Basil's face paled almost immediately.
“We… We can’t go home…? We’re going to die out here?”
“I’m afraid so…”
They pulled their knees up to their chest, wrapped up in the blanket and staring down at the ground with a haunted look in their eyes, one that made Grace’s heart ache.
What a cruel twist of fate.
“Are we the only ones here..?” Basil’s voice was barely above a whisper, with such a profound sorrow to it… They were looking up at Grace, the look in their eyes pleading for this all to be nothing more than a bad dream.
“Unfortunately, yes… the other two people on the ship —our engineer and pilot— passed away during their comas, and we are the only remaining crew members.” Grace explained, feeling his heart break in real time watching Basil's world crumble.
The young enby’s eyes misted over, sobs beginning wracking their body as their face flushed with emotion, their throat constricting as they tried to take deep breaths out of instinct. Each breath only made for a louder cry. Their knees gave out, and they fell to the ground of the dormitory, clutching the blanket around them with a vice grip.
Grace didn’t really know what else to do, so he took a gamble. He moved a little closer, crouching down and reaching his arms out, ultimately letting the kid decide whether or not they wanted a hug…
As soon as Basil saw the invitation, they rushed into Grace's arms, weeping into the scientist's chest. Grace wrapped his arms around the young enby, acting like a cocoon of protection against the universe. Grace gently rubbed their back, not shushing them, rushing them to stop, not telling them it was okay, because it clearly wasn’t. He just let them cry it out while he held them close.
Basil eventually calmed down enough that their sobs had tapered into light hiccups. They hadn’t moved out of Grace’s embrace. Grace hadn’t stopped rubbing their back, seeing as it seemed to be helping them feel better. He’d been trying to think of something —anything— to say to reassure them, but that was hard when he wasn’t sure about anything going on himself. He settled on a simple promise,
“We’ll figure it out, I promise. It’ll be okay…”
He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep his word.
But he’d sure as hell try.